


Taking Care

by scifinut



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-06
Updated: 2011-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifinut/pseuds/scifinut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elliot is stuck when his young children and wife get sick. Set pre-SVU. Written for hc_bingo on LJ. The prompt was "taking care of someone".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care

Elliot took a deep breath and silently cursed. Somehow Kathy had never been exposed to chicken pox as a child, so he was now in charge of taking care of her and Maureen since she had brought it home from her school. Luckily Kathy's parents had agreed to take Kathleen until it had passed, he didn't need a baby around getting dangerously sick from the virus too.

"Hey, honey," he said quietly carrying a plate of toast into the bedroom. "Up for some breakfast?"

Kathy groaned a bit before pulling the blanket up over her head. "Not ready to be awake yet."

"I'll leave it for you, then. But call me if you need anything. There's still water from last night, make sure you're drinking it, okay?" He backed out of the room and headed next door to where his daughter was lying in her own bed. "Maureen, honey, how are you feeling today?" he asked, kneeling at her bedside.

"Don't feel good, daddy. Do I have to get up?" Maureen looked smaller than usual, laying still in her bed with blisters covering her neck and face.

Elliot placed his hand gently over her forehead to check her fever. It was still fairly high. "No, honey, you can stay in bed today. But you have to take your medicine and drink lots of water for me, okay?" He tucked the blankets tighter around her and checked to make sure she had kept the gloves on her hands.

"I itch, daddy. Make it better." She looked up at him with plaintive eyes. "I don't wanna itch anymore, I wanna feel better."

"I wish I could snap my fingers and make it all better, baby, but there's some things that even Daddy can't do." He leaned down to hug her tightly. "I'm gonna do everything I can do, though. I promise."

Maureen nodded as Elliot stood up. "I'm thirsty, daddy. Can I have some juice?"

He nodded. "Of course, sweetheart. I'll bring some in with your medicine, okay?" He smiled as he headed out the door, but the smile faded as he rounded the corner. Maureen's fever didn't seem to be down any further than the night before and he had no clue what to do. Sick kids were Kathy's job, but now that she was sick too, he was stuck with it all. Damn her for never having had this before, anyway.

Before heading to the kitchen he went back to his bedroom. "Kathy," he said softly, moving to stand next to the bed. "Maureen's fever doesn't seem to be down any. I gave her two tablets last night and two more yesterday at lunch." The blister pack was all that was left of the medicine, none of the boxes ever survived in a house with two active little girls, and Elliot could never remember how much which kid could have.

"What time is it?" Kathy mumbled from under her pile of blankets.

"About seven."

"What time did you give them to her last night?"

Elliot thought back, trying to remember at what point he had given in and let Maureen have more medicine. "About midnight, I think. She couldn't sleep because she was so itchy so I gave her the tylenol and a teaspoon of benadryl to help her sleep."

"I could use one of those. I think I'm about to scratch myself out of my own skin." Kathy stuck her face out from the blankets. "Luckily for you, my fever seems to be breaking."

He smiled at her. "That is good news. Maybe you'll even feel up to eating something later. But for now, how many pills can I give Maureen?"

Kathy closed her eyes to think. "None. You already gave her too many yesterday. It's three a day, Elliot. No more than that. You'll have to wait until lunchtime to give her another one. You could try more allergy medicine, but do not give her any more tylenol."

She didn't sound too mad at him, so Elliot leaned in and kissed the top of Kathy's head. "You got it, babe. I'll get her dosed up and bring you back some medicine." He headed back towards the kitchen and grimaced. Luckily nothing had happened. If there had been some sort of adverse reaction, he would blame himself for it. Kathy was trying to help, as much as she could, but it was all up to Elliot at this point to run the household.

As he was taking the medicine and juice back to Maureen's room, the phone rang. He rolled his eyes and figured that the answering machine could get it easier than he could at this point, his hands were full and the only phone was in the other room.

"You've reached the Stablers. Leave us a message at the tone and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks for calling." BEEEEEEEEEEEP.

"Elliot, it's your mother in law. Look, Kathleen is running a mild fever today, it started last night. I don't think you got her out of the house before Kathy and Maureen were contagious, I think she might be getting the chicken pox too. Give me a call back, please."

He swore under his breath. This was hard enough. There was no way in hell he could manage another young sick child without help. Maybe he could just not call her back and say the machine was broken, that was believable enough. Until she showed up with another sick kid to take care of. But hopefully by then Kathy would be better and he'd be back at work.

"Daddy!" came a call from the girls' bedroom. Elliot groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"Too bad I can't claim my ears are broken," he muttered to himself. He was glad he didn't remember having chicken pox as a child, he had a lot more respect for parents everywhere. If he didn't learn anything else about this experience, it was that he was not cut out at all for taking care of people.


End file.
